


you're a shark and i'm swimming

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Nogitsune!Stiles, Non-Con references, Rape/Non-con Elements, non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 00:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1530974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh, banshee-girl," he murmurs into her mouth - no resistance, her lips parted in a cry - "you should know I'm insatiable."</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're a shark and i'm swimming

Lydia knows Allison is deadly. How can she not, when the girl slings knives easier than she slings witty comebacks and can notch an arrow quick as blinking? She’s seen it – when her best friend slips into _huntress_ mode – in the forest after school, when the visions took over and she’d nearly embedded an arrow in her _eye._ If Isaac hadn’t been there – well.

Lydia knows what it looks like. Sleek, graceful movements, tide rushing in on a moonlit shore. Effortless. She’s seen Allison in action, sure, but she’s never been _scared._ Not truly.

Until now, of course.

Allison stands at the foot of her bed, arms folded over her chest. Her hair is pulled back, leather jacket zipped tight, skirt devoid of wrinkles. Battle dress, Lydia notes, trying not to cower. Scott leans against the doorway with Kira, his expression flitting between apologetic grimaces and stern frowns, like it has been since she frantically punched in his number into her phone and called him to come get her from Echo House. He’d turned up in Stiles’ jeep – turns out the pack have been using it anyway – and had promptly yelled at her and hugged her in intervals.

Miss Kitsune seems to be warring with herself, her hand twitching up towards his shoulder every so often, then falling back to her side. Lydia’s not sure how to feel about her. Nice girl, sure, but mysterious.

“I seem to remember telling you,” her best friend says stiffly, “ _not_ to go after him. Clearly.”

Lydia sighs. “Allison –”

“ _Clearly,_ Lydia.” Her voice doesn’t rise above normal level, but there’s an obvious authority to it. Her eyes are wide and furious, jaw clenched.

“I –”

“ _God,_ ” Allison hisses, “just – what were you thinking? You could have _died –_ and then what? Stiles comes back and we have to tell him you’re gone? Scott adds another name to the list of deaths we could’ve prevented? I lose my best friend?”

Her body heaves, stalls, unshed tears glistening in the glossy brown depths of her eyes. Lydia reaches for her hand but she pulls away and steps back, shaking her head. If Isaac were here, not unconscious – _dying?_ – in a hospital bed, he’d skim her elbow with one of his hands, to let her know he was there, but give her enough room to breathe. Lydia _knows,_ even if she doesn’t show it. She knows her best friend, knows her losses and her needs. In a lot of ways, Allison is like a wolf, however much she denies it. She will never ask for help. She’ll deny weakness, cover it up, even become hostile if need be – acceptance of a helping hand is coaxed, not given, merely _allowed_ after a certain amount of trust.

“I’m sorry,” Lydia murmurs, and she _means_ it. “Really, Allison. I am.”

Her heart pounds in her chest, and a sickly empty feeling starts up, twisting round her gut. She can’t lose Allison. She can’t lose the friendship they’ve forged – Lydia’s no stranger to the way female relationships are supposed to be like. Fickle. Fragile.  And they _are,_ in a way, if only because little girls are meant to compete with each other, always finding ways to be the prettiest or the cutest or the most popular. Easily broken things, they were made out to be, disrupted by a boy’s attention or passing comments. Lydia’s had friends like that, so the fact that she and Allison have managed to escape it and forge their relationship on stronger stuff means that she’ll do _anything_ to preserve it. Even if she has to swallow her pride.

“I was wrong.” She whispers, her voice hitching in a way she _never_ allows herself, and reaches for Allison’s hand again.

This time, her best friend locks their fingers together tightly, albeit hesitantly. She looks down at where their palms meet, bites her lip. “Are you OK?”

Lydia very nearly rolls her eyes. How like Allison Argent, to know her well enough not to question her motives. She’s well aware of the complicated relationship Lydia and Stiles have – or had, and _God_ how that simple correction nearly twists her heart in two – and why she’d have gone after him. She doesn’t care about that. All she wants to know is if Lydia is healing.

“I’m coping.” She tells Allison firmly, her gaze flitting over to Scott. He doesn’t look convinced, but she _is._ She is.

The words _he’s different_ bubble at the back of her teeth but with a swipe of her tongue they’re gone, erased, and Lydia scorns them. Of course he’s _different –_ he’s possessed by a fucking nogitsune, what did she expect? She didn’t go to Echo House expecting to find a boy with honey eyes and a soft, upturned smile. She expected to find a demon wearing someone else’s skin. She had no illusions as to warmth or affection; the trickster is cold, and he leeches any heat from all he touches.

 _Still,_ a voice like tendrils of vapour whispers, _you didn’t expect_ that.

Maybe it’s true. Lydia hadn’t expected the nogitsune to kiss her, or to drive his hips into hers with such purpose and grace that left her breathless – she hadn’t expected him to leave her heart beating, much less racing with anything other than terror. He’d said that letting her go was going to be _so much fun,_ and she’s racked her brains every night since that day, and come up with nothing, other than the recurring image of a shark circling pale, useless legs.

It plays on her mind; the fin cutting towards her, the flat darkness of the water like glass, the sickly moonlight rippling as she kicks frantically backwards – and such _panic,_ like she’s never felt, not even that night on the field, quakes through her blood.

She meets Scott’s eyes. The warm, reassuring brown of them look troubled. A moment spent swimming in them, and she knows he can tell. _Dread,_ they cry, _dread._ She knows it’s what she’s been feeling, but putting a name to the emotion is like ice-water replacing marrow – she’s chilled to the core.

They both know there’s not much hope. The nogitsune has its claws firmly hooked, and making it let go without tearing flesh from bone is going to be near impossible. If they don’t do something, and fast, they’ll lose him forever.

She squeezes Allison’s hand. Her palm is cool and calloused from archery.

“Just... don’t do it again, OK?” she says softly, her posture relaxing.

Lydia nods, but even as she smiles and says “OK,” she’s already planning her next move.

She’s a banshee-girl, and a hurricane, and she does not stop.

 

///

 

“ _SCOTT!_ ”

 

///

 

Pounding on the walls, the door. Her knuckles bleed. Red slicks her palms.

“Scott,” she whimpers, “please.”

 

///

 

She’s running in a hall filled with balloons, strawberry-blond curls streaking out behind her, mouth stretched into a perfect, crimson _O._

His voice echoes in her head, but it’s warped, and she hears him following behind. She dry-sobs, chest heaving. She goes to call for help, but of course nobody’s coming to save her. Allison’s not here. Scott’s not here.

The nogitsune is here. Someone screams for her; someone she knows.

She has to run.

 _Banshee-girl,_ **go faster**.

 

///

 

Lydia’s in Echo House again, wedged between the solid plane of Stiles’ chest and the cold metal bars. Her forehead is pressed against them, his nose brushing the ridge of her cheek.

The line of his body fits against the curve of her spine with a cruel kind of perfection; he _shouldn’t_ be so suited to her, not like this. Even as his fingernails dig into her wrists, even as his sour breath washes over her, she feels like her bones were only ever meant to knit with his.

“What _am_ I gonna do with you, huh, Lyds?” the nogitsune sighs.

The familiarity with which he utters her name makes her breath come ragged in fear. “Let me go,” she whispers.

He ducks his head, chuckles against her shoulder. “Can’t do that,” he mumbles into brown leather, “can’t. Sorry, banshee-girl.”

She sucks in a shuddering gasp, lets it out in a sob. “What do you _want?_ ” she hisses through gritted teeth. Her fingers curl around the metal bars, tightly, as if she can leech strength from the foundations.

“I’m hungry,” he sings, sliding his hand up her back. His palm is the kind of cold that sinks into her bones, that _hurts._ “Us foxes – and the coyotes, and the ravens – we’re all about _food._ ”

“Yeah?” Lydia manages to choke out. “Well you can just – just go eat _shit._ ”

His laugh, this time, is nothing short of ravenous. "You got so much fire in you, Lyds," he says. "I love it. Like... like moths." A giggle. "To a flame, y'know?"

She breathes in sharp, frigid air when he slams the edge of his teeth to her cheekbone. She sobs, clutching at the bars for support. " _Please_ \- " she whimpers.

"We're all about food," he croons again, and then his fingers wind in her curls and he _yanks_ her head back to expose her neck.

Stinging pain makes her shriek; she writhes in his grasp, staring up at him. He looks down at her with that hungry gaze again, stares at her like she's something to eat. The circles under his eyes are like bruises, sharply contrasting against the white of his flesh. Something ugly twists his mouth; he leans down to her with a smirk.

"Oh, banshee-girl," he murmurs into her mouth - no resistance, her lips parted in a cry - "you should know I'm in _satiable._ "

The nogitsune swallows her sob with a bite, one hand fisted in her hair and the other digging into her hip. He tugs at her bottom lip, worrying at it almost gently.

"No -" Lydia snarls, but the word is barely out of her mouth when he pulls her from the bars, twists her round to face him and against his chest.

Not-Stiles presses his lips to hers, forcing them apart with a growl. His tongue is like a branding iron, licking over her teeth and gums – she feels as if he’s burning her from the inside, breathing the devil into her lungs.

Her shoulders slam into the bars, cold metal digging into shoulder blades. Lydia struggles vehemently against him, fingers curling to claws and tearing at skin, at hair, at _him._ She aches for him in the most horrific of ways, this not-Stiles, aches for flesh underneath fingernails and blood in her mouth – she kisses him, hates him, kisses him.

His fingers find the curve of her hip underneath her shirt, raking up, along the soft expanse of her belly – he hisses as if in satisfaction when her teeth sink into his bottom lip.

The hiss turns into a ragged snarl when she doesn’t stop.

Blood bursts on her tongue, slick and coppery; he tries to pull back, digs his nails into her cheek, but Lydia keeps her eyes wide open and fixed on his and _holds on,_ tears spilling over onto his lips.

Not-Stiles gives her one last shove, yowling like an injured cat. Her head smacks into the bars, and all goes black.

 

///

 

The ground is cold beneath her.

Someone’s hand smooths itself over her back. A low melody, a soft crooning, just above her head. Stiles’ voice, but of course it’s not him.

The nogitsune sings, voice sweet as sin, of crows and foxes and the little girls who tempt them so.

Lydia wants to gouge out his eyes.

 

///

 

“He loves you, banshee-girl. He’s screaming for you.”

 

///

 

“Lydia? Lydia!”

Scott – sweet, caring Scott – wrenches the bars aside with barely a flinch, catching her as she collides with him. He pulls her into a brief embrace – head tucked under his chin, warmth at her back – then retreats.

His gaze is worried; “Are you alright?”

“ _What are you doing here?_ ” she hisses, surging past him to address them both.

Stiles watches her nervously, and she wants _so badly_ to fling herself at him, curl up in his arms and sleep and sleep and sleep, but the ghost of not-Stiles’ lips still press at hers, so she shifts her stare back to Scott.

“Ly – what?”

“You can’t be here – someone’s going to die – I _told_ you –” she chokes out, grief rising in her throat, death curling tight at the back of her spine.

A name hisses through the air. She ignores it, doesn’t hear it, doesn’t listen for silence after the scream.

Her chest heaves. “Scott, _go_!”

His eyes widen. He goes.

Stiles at her side (as he should be, she thinks), she runs after him. Their footsteps echo down the halls, no match for the whispering.

Someone’s about to die, this she knows.

She just hopes to God it’s the nogitsune.

“Lyds – I can’t –”

She turns; Stiles has collapsed against the wall, panting, shaking his head. It strikes her then just how _young_ he looks, how lost. His mouth gapes open, arms outstretched. She takes his hands without hesitation. He whispers her name; no innuendo, no scathing smirks. Only Stiles.

 

///

 

When Allison dies, it’s like a part of her has been torn away. She feels the loss immediately, feels the snatches of her best friend sift through the air and dissipate – she screams, and tastes not-Stiles’ laughter on her tongue.

The fight all but goes from her bones; she leans against the unconscious boy next to her for support.

She hears Scott’s anguished screams, feels Isaac’s heart _stop_ and _start_ , grips Stiles’ hand tight. She stays there, rocking with the force of her own cries, mouth stretched wide open.

Her best friend – the dimpled new girl with the brightest grin she’d ever seen, the cutest skirt, the biggest heart. She’ll never get to graduate. She’ll never move out. She’ll never see her dad again – _oh, God,_ Lydia’s ribs ache – she feels so hopeless, as if every light has gone from her life even though she’s holding onto the spark _right here._

Hours later, when her tears still soak the skin of Stiles’ neck, Scott returns.

The three of them, one still blissfully unaware of their loss, the others broken, sit slumped in the cold hallway.

“We’re kids,” he says, his voice raw.

She looks at him. There’s something sharper to him, as if the blade that killed his first love cut away all his soft edges, too.

“Since when does the universe give a shit about that?” she asks him, and then, into the awful silence between them, “we’re warrior children fighting for the sun.”

He starts to cry, fresh tears replacing the blood from Allison’s wound on his cheek. Had he laid his face on her chest, listened to her heartbeat slowly stutter to a halt? Lydia grips his shoulder.

 _Warrior children fighting for the sun._ She remembers seeing that inscribed on a filthy brick wall in some nightclub with Jackson. Carved with charcoal, blue in the fluorescent lighting, it has never been more appropriate.


End file.
